Deployment Lead

Shape the Future of AI

At Labelbox were building the critical infrastructure that powers breakthrough AI models at leading research labs and enterprises. Since 2018 weve been pioneering data-centric approaches that are fundamental to AI development and our work becomes even more essential as AI capabilities expand exponentially.

About Labelbox

Were the only company offering three integrated solutions for frontier AI development:

1. Enterprise Platform & Tools: Advanced annotation tools workflow automation and quality control systems that enable teams to produce high-quality training data at scale
2. Frontier Data Labeling Service: Specialized data labeling through Alignerr leveraging subject matter experts for next-generation AI models
3. Expert Marketplace: Connecting AI teams with highly skilled annotators and domain experts for flexible scaling

Why Join Us

• High-Impact Environment: We operate like an early-stage startup focusing on impact over process. Youll take on expanded responsibilities quickly with career growth directly tied to your contributions.
• Technical Excellence: Work at the cutting edge of AI development collaborating with industry leaders and shaping the future of artificial intelligence.
• Innovation at Speed: We celebrate those who take ownership move fast and deliver impact. Our environment rewards high agency and rapid execution.
• Continuous Growth: Every role requires continuous learning and evolution. Youll be surrounded by curious minds solving complex problems at the frontier of AI.
• Clear Ownership: Youll know exactly what youre responsible for and have the autonomy to execute. We empower people to drive results through clear ownership and metrics.

Role Overview

Get an inside look and hear directly from our current Forward Deployed Engineers here!

About the Role

The Deployment Lead owns the successful delivery of complex customer programs from initial scoping through steady-state execution on time to the quality bar and at margin. This is a senior customer-facing role for operators who can translate a customers technical and business requirements into clear execution plans coordinate multiple internal workstreams own the economics of the deployment and ensure projects meet their throughput quality delivery and margin commitments.

Deployment Leads sit at the intersection of customer relationship management technical program management and operational and financial execution. They must understand the underlying technical requirements of each program well enough to pressure-test implementation plans and communicate tradeoffs clearly with the customer and own the unit economics well enough to protect margin while they do it.

The Deployment Lead is the operations-and-margin leg of the customer team: they own delivery and the deployments economics partnering with the General Manager who owns the broader customer relationship and growth. They are the primary point of accountability for the delivery of a major customer or portfolio of projects and the customers point of contact when timelines requirements or operational performance are in play. They coordinate Technical Program Managers and Forward Deployed Engineers across the account ensuring each workstream is staffed from the pools technically sound and aligned with the broader customer objective.

This role is equivalent in seniority to a TPM Manager but with a stronger emphasis on customer ownership deployment success and margin. It is a senior destination on the TPM track and a pathway toward a General Manager role. General Managers own the broader account end-to-end including the overall customer and researcher relationships proposal development account strategy operating cadence and the portfolio of deployments delivered for that customer.

What Youll Do

• Own the end-to-end deployment of projects for one or more major customers from initial scoping and technical design through launch and ongoing execution accountable for throughput quality delivery and margin.
• Own the economics of your deployments: instrument margin live manage the cost-to-revenue picture across the accounts projects and make the in-flight calls (comp structure staffing project structure) that protect it the level where TPMs escalate margin-structure decisions.
• Serve as the customers primary point of contact for delivery timelines technical requirements risks and operational performance.
• Develop a detailed understanding of each customers technical requirements: system constraints integrations data flows workflows and acceptance criteria.
• Translate customer requirements into clear project plans milestones owners success metrics and a margin model.
• Ensure the accounts projects move through their gates calibration before scaling staged ramp delivery acceptance so quality and margin hold across the portfolio.
• Work closely with FDEs TPMs and FDRs to validate implementation plans manage dependencies and ensure technical decisions support the customers goals and the deployments economics.
• Coordinate TPMs and FDEs across multiple concurrent projects maintaining a clear view of progress staffing risk margin and cross-project dependencies and ensure projects are staffed from the pools and the data-trainer workforce is sized and productive via TPMs and Pod Leads.
• Communicate technical and economic tradeoffs and implementation risks clearly to customer stakeholders and internal teams.
• Identify risks early establish mitigation plans and escalate when timelines technical feasibility quality or margin are at risk.
• Partner with FDEs FDRs the Talent/Crowd team the GM and platform teams to unblock execution.
• Establish the operating cadence dashboards and escalation paths that create visibility and accountability and improve deployment playbooks as the organization scales.

What Youll Own

• Delivery of your customers portfolio on time to the quality bar and at or above target margin.
• The deployments economics: live margin the cost-to-revenue picture and the in-flight decisions that protect it.
• The customers trust on delivery and operational performance.
• A clear operating cadence and a live view of progress staffing risk and margin across projects.

What Were Looking For

• Significant experience owning complex cross-functional programs in a customer-facing environment as an operator who has run things not advised on them.
• Financial and commercial numeracy: comfort owning margin building and reading the unit economics of a program and making the call to protect it.
• Strong technical fluency and the ability to quickly understand complex systems workflows and implementation requirements.
• Ability to communicate credibly with technical customer stakeholders while translating technical detail into clear decisions for non-technical audiences.
• A track record of partnering effectively with engineers program managers and cross-functional operators.
• Excellent judgment: you can distinguish technical issues from execution issues from customer-management issues and find the right path to resolution.
• A strong track record of delivering against ambitious timelines while holding a high bar for quality.
• Comfort operating in ambiguous environments where requirements evolve and processes are still being built.
• Strong operational instincts a bias toward action and attention to detail across multiple projects at once.

Nice to Have

• Background in consulting banking private equity/VC or an operating role where you owned a P&L or a hard number.
• Experience deploying technical products services or data-intensive programs.
• Familiarity with AI machine learning data pipelines or RL/evaluation work.
• Experience working directly with forward-deployed engineers solutions engineers or implementation teams.
• Experience managing strategic accounts with multiple parallel workstreams.
• Experience building repeatable operating systems for a rapidly scaling organization.

What Success Looks Like

In your first several months youll take ownership of a major customer deployment develop a strong understanding of its technical and operational requirements stand up a clear operating cadence and bring real visibility to delivery risk and margin. Youll build strong working relationships with the TPM FDE and FDR teams and the GM keep the technical and operational workstreams coordinated hold your projects to their gates and become the customers trusted point of contact when implementation decisions timelines or margins are at risk.

Over time youll help define how the organization deploys complex technical programs at scale.

Life at Labelbox

• Location: Join our dedicated tech hub in San Francisco
• Work Style: Hybrid model with 3 days per week in office combining collaboration and flexibility
• Environment: Fast-paced and high-intensity perfect for ambitious individuals who thrive on ownership and quick decision-making
• Growth: Career advancement opportunities directly tied to your impact
• Vision: Be part of building the foundation for humanitys most transformative technology

Our Vision

We believe data will remain crucial in achieving artificial general intelligence. As AI models become more sophisticated the need for high-quality specialized training data will only grow. Join us in developing new products and services that enable the next generation of AI breakthroughs.

Labelbox is backed by leading investors including SoftBank Andreessen Horowitz B Capital Gradient Ventures Databricks Ventures and Kleiner Perkins. Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and leading AI labs.

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